At The Doctor

While sitting in the waiting area at my last doctor appointment an older guy (older than myself) came in with who I assume was his daughter. Caused me to wish I had a daughter to accompany me to doctor visits. 

Routines

My little daily routines and rituals are an ever-changing process.

Sounds contradictory right? But that's the way it is with me. 

Circumstances change with a person's age and other various conditions and considerations so in response, routines often change.

My latest is to wake up early on Sunday mornings, drive downtown, cross the bridge to the west side of town and enjoy breakfast from the deli offerings of a local grocery store .... bacon, sausage, fried diced potatoes, biscuits & gravy ..... while listening to the jazz radio station in the comfort of my car and their parking lot. Sometimes I'll drive the short distance to a local park where I used to lead a fall and spring youth soccer program and take in the ghosts, memories and flashbacks of those years.   

It was long ago and yet much of it still feels so recent. Especially the chills of the end-of-the-day unwind moments after occasionally being out in the rain from sunrise to damn near sunset. 🤣 

But I digress I suppose. I used to think it was my 'calling' .... to work with kids. To try to set an example. To do something that mattered. 

I look around those fields and though the powerful images of those experiences survive, the soccer goals are no longer there. I know that when I finally walked away after maybe twenty-five years that there were budget concerns, but I never imagined that the program would vanish entirely from this spot. I always thought a way would be found to keep it going. That I might even return after a short period of retirement. It always seemed so vital to the youth and the community. I sincerely believed in the concepts it was built around. I truly thought that it and I were making a difference. 

And though I had the thought I might return, the walking away was so difficult emotionally, I knew deep down that I never would. 

I'm not good or accomplished at walking away from things.

It wasn't my intent to re-visit this memory when I started talking about routines, but here I am. It's typed and I'm not about to backspace and erase just to keep the thread consistent. 🤣

Is Someone There?

I'm always looking out my kitchen window sensing for an instant that someone is there on the approach to my front door. There's never anyone present except for the occasional amazon delivery driver. This sense of a presence though .... Well, I've never been one to believe in ghosts or spirits wandering among us, but I'm puzzled by this feeling that someone is out there. Someone with intentions that are unclear. 

It reminds me of the time many years ago ..... I was working night shift in a scale house weighing trucks. A little shack 50-100 yards out from the main facility and other humans. At 3:00am it could sometimes feel like twenty miles from any life and solitary confinement. I had seen the lights of a truck approaching and go dark. As I turned to look out the window into the darkness, suddenly a face resembling Charles Manson appeared, peering in at me. Turned out to be a truck driver and the son of a local farmer but there was an anxious moment of fright there. 

Also reminded as I type, of the time while driving my car late at night, I rounded a curve on a dark road on the outskirts of town and for an instant, thought I saw someone crossing the road on foot, just in front of me. Too late to stop or change direction, I braced for the impact ..... and there was none. I've since decided it was the dim streetlights and shadows from tree limbs and leaf's that were being blown about by the wind. Though the possibility of a ghost has always been present in my thoughts and memory of the moment.

So while I claim to not believe in such things, there's always a question or sliver of doubt. 

This and That

What felt like a long-lasting dream about playing soccer, this one falling asleep sitting on the couch while paying minimal attention to the Lakers vs Nuggets playoff game ..... I think it was about soccer. we were outside anyway and playing on natural grass, passing the ball with our feet but as I approached the goal and received the ball amidst encouragement to shoot, decided I was too far away, passed back to teammate, continued forward on the wing and re-received a second pass, ..... then rising for a jump shot!! Which fell well short of the goal. ..... an AIRBALL!! 

So was it soccer or basketball? Or some hybrid combination of both games that my mind created in its drier and sleep impaired darker regions?

And my father was suddenly there at the very end just before I awoke, either on the sideline or the actual playing field, watching or participating in some way.

__________________________

Co-worker: "Why aren't you talking to me today?"

Me: "Well we have this audit going on and it's a big problema in the trasero."

Her: "That's not a good reason, it's not a problema for chica."

Me: "Well have you heard that gringo saying, When momma's not happy, nobody is happy? It's kinda like when MikesBrown" .... (said with an 's' at the end of Mike and as one word) ..... "has a problema, everyone has a problema."  

Ok I guess you had to be there. It was funny at the time this conversation between these two non-fictional characters that no author would attempt to put together in their wildest form of fiction and in continuation of their ongoing comedy series.

________________________________

I had a third story to share but have totally forgotten it while typing out the above.

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Browsing at the used bookstore and I came across this book, "Jerry Garcia: The Collected Artwork" ..... Flipping through the pages, I came upon this:

The book has a new home. The piece is titled: 'Who Goes There' and was painted in 1993. In case you're not sure, the same Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead. The kind of image that I'd love to have on my walls. I have no deep thoughts as to its possible meaning or why it speaks to me. I just know that I love the image and have a renewed appreciation of green.

Made It Through

I so look forward to these moments when a doctor appointment is in the rear-view mirror.

No offense intended toward either of my doctors. The appointments just tend to arouse anxiety on my part.

More Hoop Dreams

Awakened at this odd hour after another dream ..... this one not so bizarre (well on second thought) ..... but incredibly outlandish. 

I dreamed about playing basketball again. And I've had a few other 'hoop dreams' in the past but not like this one.

Walking to the front door of the Salem Armory Auditorium, overtaken by memories of days long past, and wondering if I'm going to have to pay to get in, there was also the realization that I didn't have the proper shoes and I'd likely be slipping and sliding, if not spraining an ankle. (Or two?)

I walk on the court, like so many times before and like on dozens if not hundreds of different courts around the area and there's ten guys warming up for the other team, mostly guys known facially from city league games in the past ..... and three guys near the bench for our team, two old teammates and one guy known from other activities but not a former teammate. He tells me that he wants to see me shooting my jump shot and all I can think is it's been years and my body has forgotten the coordination and cooperation of parts required to get that perfect and picturesque jump shot .....

..... and I'm also thinking. "Oh shit, we only have three guys and me and I'm going to have to play the whole game after having not played for at least twenty years and I'll have no stamina ..... AND NO SHOES!!

And then I learn that this team has already played fourteen games ..... (where the hell was I for those first fourteen?) ..... Heck the average city or church league season would run ten games. And then I look around and there's maybe fifteen guys in our layup line and I'm relieved that I'm not going to have to play in these traction lacking shoes yet upset at the same time because I'm not going to get to play much .....

..... and if there's anything that I've always been in real life it's this mass of conflicting emotions .....

..... Then I notice standing behind me in the layup line is Rick Adelman and I'm suddenly all like: "Hey remember me??"  ..... Of course in real life, I never played on the Chemeketa teams that he actually coached before going onto slightly bigger things, like coaching in the NBA and devising plans to slow down Michael Jordan and the only other time I was within shouting distance of him was when I reffing a youth basketball jamboree, where every 3rd and 4th grade team in the city was in one gym, playing short games and constantly rotating among five or six courts, and I look to the sideline during hour four or five of that Saturday and there he is coaching his son or daughters team ..... and that was probably 40 to 45-ish years ago, the mid or early 1980's, a different century ago but heck, he ought to remember me from that.

..... And as I'm still trying to relearn my jump shot and the timing and choreography of the layup line, I suddenly wake up, happy when I realize that I don't have to run out and spend hundreds of dollars on new shoes. 

Well I actually do need new shoes but not basketball shoes. 

Tim

I walk in the door at work, clock in and am immediately approached by a co-worker with news that another co-worker had died in his sleep over the weekend.

And it never becomes ordinary or accepted to hear that. Even as it becomes more frequent as years pass by and add up. 

My reaction at the news: A drawn out, "Fuuuuuck." ..... then the thoughts of 'No way, I just saw him a day ago. He just wished me a good day." 

And I really don't like to think about these things any longer. You know?? Once you come to recognize that your own remaining time isn't unlimited. But occasionally you have to deal with the emotions and reactions. Because it was someone you had a little bit of a friendship with. Someone I connected with in a small but significant (to me) way.

I heard that he was taking care of his parents. I wonder how they're doing with this. He was only a few years younger than I am. So, his parents must be quite elderly. And no parent should have to learn of their child's passing.

I don't want to mis-represent things ..... I didn't know much about him. We mostly exchanged daily hellos and he'd pass on any, 'need-to-know' information. Maybe a tidbit of gossip or humor occasionally. He was a friendly face each morning.

And I felt and still feel, shaken.

I don't want this to be more about myself than it is about him but I just don't know much about Tim's world and life. I only met him three or four years ago when our company went bankrupt, and the buyer that stepped in, merged two separate facilities. One evening, at a time that we both had different job titles, he stepped in to help when I needed assistance with getting things done. It wasn't expected of him and he had his own duties to worry about but he did it anyway.

I've since always been appreciative, and he's always been friendly, even as my ever growing, non-morning-person personality must have been obvious. 

We've both found our way into different roles in this place where we cross paths for a few minutes each day.

(To Be Continued)

Close Encounters

Was reminded of something tonight .....

I was at a jam-packed Music Millenium in Portland once for an in-store performance by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and while navigating through the sea of humanity after the show, I had the sudden realization: "Hey that was them" that just brushed by me. I'm talking an inch or two separation .... shared space going opposite directions. My encounter with someone famous. 

And I said "Thank you" to folkie/singer-songwriter, Ellis Paul as he sat in the foyer of an old church, between sets of a wonderful, small venue performance in Portland ..... Just saw him sitting there and blurted out: "Thank you."  It was all I could think of to say. It was what came to me in the immediate moment when I had to think fast. 

Admittedly, a lot for me. I can be so talkative and bold at times. 🤣

I said the same "thank you" to Dave Bruzza from the band, Greensky Bluegrass to complete the transaction of purchasing a cd from a suitcase at Hotel Oregon in McMinnville. 

I wonder tonight if any of those folks recall those encounters beyond those respective split seconds in musical history and time? 😆🤣 

__________________________________________

Did we 'spring forward' another hour? Are we now on daylight savings time-plus? 

I was looking at the jazz radio station playlist for a song heard on my car radio at 6:30pm and there's a listing for the five and seven o'clock hours but it's like the six o'clock hour didn't happen. 

That's the kind of luck that I always have. It's like I'm the victim of a high school prank.  

The R-Word Again

Ran into an old friend tonight who upon asking and without hesitation or hint of what I wanted to hear, encouraged me to keep working. 

I hope my sister doesn't get wind of this. She's on record with attempting to recruit a different old friend to join forces with her in her mission to convince me to retire.

Three AM Revelation

Undertook one of my occasional kitchen endeavors last night. 

And I just woke up, six hours later at 3:00am after one of my weirdest and least eventful in the bizarre dreams series. And I may have arrived at an, "aha" moment. Cause and effect and all that. Maybe the improvisational cooking is the thing that triggers the late-night weirdness? 

And the dream itself was like an episode of Seinfeld (except with poor writers), where everything happening revolved around nothing originating at the house I grew up in and spreading to the apartment I moved to when I moved out .... for love ..... though there was no love involved in this dream. Actually, the lack of emotion could have been a theme. 

This Little Piggy Cries Wee Wee Wee .....

Funny how a little effort and a few moments of TLC for your toes can improve your entire outlook on life ..... and it wasn't even all that "T" (tender).

..... Until that is, you walk out of the freezer at work and the glasses immediately fog over and ten steps farther on, still mostly legally blind, walk into a solid wood pallet, stubbing the big toe and inflicting great pain. 

And that just sours your whole disposition and erases all the good feelings. 

______________________________

I couldn't help but chuckle because I know the personalities involved and the past issues between them .....

Three supervisors at work, all with the same job, usually on different shifts, all working together on day shift currently on a special project as their normal job has a little downtime and I heard they were informed and instructed by the production manager, in an effort to defuse potential conflicts, past rivalries and backbiting (the norm) and as an order and as the final word in the matter, that: .....  "Everyone is going to be happy."  

"Yeah right" I thought. 

Could It Be?

This afternoon I felt two, what I thought were raindrops, but then nothing else. I checked my hat for bird poop (it's got to land on people sometimes right?) .... the hat was clean.

So what was that sensation? Maybe I just sprouted two hairs from a spot that's been mostly barren for 40-plus years.